VIDEOS: New York State Democratic Party co-chairs absent from annual meeting

COLONIE -- The disarray gripping the New York State Democratic Party was on display at its annual meeting Wednesday, opening with a hole in the program where Gov. Andrew Cuomo usually speaks and closing with a resolution denouncing Vito Lopez.

Cuomo is feuding with state party Co-Chair Stephanie Miner, the Syracuse mayor, over her public criticism that he has done little to lift state mandates on struggling upstate cities. Cuomo, meanwhile, has seen his 2013 legislative agenda become a sideshow to legislative scandals that include the Lopez Assembly sex harassment case.

Cuomo invited Democratic leaders to the Executive Mansion Tuesday night and skipped the Wednesday meeting to hold a media event instead at SUNY Albany about a new tax break for businesses opening on college campuses. Also skipping the main event was Miner and fellow co-chair Assemblyman Keith Wright, who appeared briefly to speak at breakfast before the start of the annual meeting.

Miner attended the mansion event and said in a radio interview Wednesday morning that they are "professional and courteous" with each other despite a public break that included a New York Times op-ed highly critical of Cuomo.

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At the meeting, Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy praised Cuomo as a governor who has defied attempts to pigeon-hole him politically.

"Here's a man who represented the interests of this party, in terms of a progressive leader," Duffy said. "You look back, they always try to typecast Democrats leaders in one form or another. I think Gov. Cuomo has really transcended that. People can't in any way cubbyhole him, because he has had great business leadership. He had great fiscal leadership."

The meeting ended less than an hour later with a formal denunciation of Vito Lopez, the disgraced former Brooklyn Democratic boss and Assembly bigwig accused of being a serial sex abuser of young women on his staff. Lopez remains as a fully accredited member of the state committee and a party district leader in Brooklyn, though the resolution called upon him to resign both posts. Party leaders said it is not clear they have the legal authority right now to remove him from party office.

"Vito Lopez blames his victims for his own misconduct," the resolution stated. "There is no place in government or politics for someone who conducts himself in the manner in which Vito Lopez has. Therefore be it resolved that the New York State Democratic Committee needs to send the strongest possible message condemning his conduct and declare that New York state will have zero tolerance for sexual harassment in our Legislature and government."

The meeting in a hotel by Albany Airport was in sharp contrast to an election-year gathering almost to the day one year ago when Cuomo, Miner, Wright, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver gave rousing speeches at a glitzy gathering in downtown Albany. Silver, who faces calls for his ouster over the Lopez case, also skipped the annual party meeting.

Second-string speakers to the assembled party leaders included Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy, and Leah Gunn Barrett of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.

Barrett praised Cuomo's controversial SAFE gun control law after announcing from the podium that she had been asked on short notice if she could come up to Albany to deliver the speech that closed the annual meeting, the spot usually reserved for the governor.